


pragma

by bluejayblueskies



Series: Aspec Archives Week [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Asexual Martin Blackwood, Dancing, Domestic Fluff, Gentle Kissing, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Wears a Skirt, M/M, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Sex-Repulsed Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sex-Repulsed Martin Blackwood, Tenderness, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluejayblueskies/pseuds/bluejayblueskies
Summary: “The music is nice,” Jon says, leaning his head gently against the side of Martin’s knee. “It’s lovely, the quiet we have here, but sometimes the silence can get a bit…”He waves his hand absently. “Oppressive.”Martin lets out a small exhalation. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”They sit for a moment, what would have been silence filled instead with the gentle hum of a jazz ballad. Then, the couch dips again as Martin stands and says, quietly, “Dance with me?”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Aspec Archives Week [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103339
Comments: 31
Kudos: 149
Collections: Aspec Archives Week, Repulsed/Averse Ace Jon Archivist





	pragma

**Author's Note:**

> _pragma: n. a mature, enduring love; focused on common interests, commitment, and dedication; a love that knows no bounds_
> 
> Written for prompt 7 of Aspec Archives Week – discover, solidarity, music!
> 
> No content warnings apply!
> 
> The aspec identities explored in this fic are asexual (sex-repulsed) Jon and asexual (sex-repulsed) Martin

They’ve been at the safehouse for a week and a half when Jon discovers the vinyl records, tucked away between the back of the couch and the wall and with a thick layer of dust coating the top of the box that makes Jon cough as he extracts it. _There’s a record player in the spare bedroom,_ his mind supplies, and he hesitates only a moment before retrieving it.

To say that Daisy’s selection of records is eclectic would be putting it mildly. Jon picks up Miles Davis’s _Kind of Blue_ and reveals underneath it Prince’s _Purple Rain_. There are two separate Beethoven records, _Abbey Road_ sandwiched in between them, and Jon can’t hold back a surprised laugh when he unearths three Britney Spears albums in quick succession. He wonders how many times, when Daisy would start humming something while they worked or would tap her fingers against his desk to the rhythm of a song only she could hear, she was thinking of one of these records.

Maybe never. According to Basira, Daisy hasn’t been here for a very, very long time. A small voice in the back of Jon’s mind that he recognizes as not-quite-his whispers that it’s been exactly three years, eleven months, and twenty-two days since Daisy’s forgotten about the records in Jon’s hands.

He puts one on all the same, lining up the needle with careful precision and setting the record spinning before dropping it. The sound is warbled and raspy, little pops and clicks in the music highlighting the age and wear of the records. Jon leans back against the side of the couch, tucks his knees into his chest, and listens.

He’s still there when Martin gets back from the shop, having worked his way through _Earth, Wind & Fire_ and _The Rolling Stones_. The sounds of warm piano, brassy trumpets, and vocals that push and pull like the tide cover the shuffling of Martin’s feet as he kicks off his shoes and the rustling of bags as they’re set on the counter and emptied. Then, the couch dips near where Jon’s sat on the floor, and Martin says softly, “What are those?”

Most of the records are out of the box now, spread out in front of Jon in an array of technicolor images. Jon picks one at random— _Red Hot Chili Peppers_ —and holds it out to Martin. “Daisy’s record collection,” he says, feeling the gentle bump of Martin’s knee against his shoulder as Martin takes the record from him. “It’s… _quite_ varied.”

“I can see that,” Martin says, amused. He sets the album down next to him and inclines his head toward the record player. “What’s playing now?”

“ _Our Love Is Here To Stay,_ ” Jon says with a certainty that surprises him given that he’s fairly certain the record had been in a blank sleeve. “Er, it’s a- a compilation album of various Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong recordings, released in 1998—though the individual tracks were recorded before that. It’s funny, really, the- the pianist on track four was meant to be Bill Evans, but he—”

There’s a small chuckle, and Jon cuts off mid-sentence, twisting slightly so he can see Martin’s face; it’s split nearly in half by an amused smile. “What?” Jon says, and he doesn’t mean for it to sound so _fond,_ but he supposes that’s rather par for the course lately.

“Sorry, sorry,” Martin says, waving a hand at him. Then: “It- it’s just, _jazz?_ The Eye can’t tell us whether or not it’s going to rain tomorrow or- or what’s happening back in London, but it can help you recite the Wikipedia page about a jazz album from the 1990s?” Another giggle escapes Martin, and he clamps his hand over his mouth as if to pull it back in. “God, sorry, I- I don’t know why I think it’s so funny.”

Jon watches Martin for a moment more before the bubble of affection within him bursts and he laughs—a small, breathy sound. “Yes, I- I suppose it is a bit amusing,” he says, leaning his head gently against the side of Martin’s knee. “The music is nice, though. It’s lovely, the quiet we have here, but sometimes the silence can get a bit…”

He waves his hand absently. “ _Oppressive_.”

Martin lets out a small exhalation. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

They sit for a moment, what would have been silence filled instead with the gentle hum of a jazz ballad. Then, the couch dips again as Martin stands and says, quietly, “Dance with me?”

It really shouldn’t be this easy to make Jon flustered, but he feels his face grow warmer as he takes the hand Martin’s extended toward him and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. Jon hadn’t danced much with Georgie when they’d dated; she’d always said that he had two left feet, and their few attempts had resulted in crushed toes or helpless giggles when Jon inevitably tripped over a piece of furniture or his own feet (or, on one rather memorable occasion, the Admiral). He worries, for a brief moment, that he won’t remember how—that the right steps have been lost to the years, replaced with records of terror. Then, one of Martin’s hands closes around his, his other resting gently on Jon’s hip and guiding him closer until their bodies are almost flush, and Jon’s lost in the soft sounds of jazz and the feeling of Martin’s breath across his cheek as they begin to sway.

When they’d first gotten to the safehouse, Martin’s hand had been clasped firmly in Jon’s, a grounding presence that had begun in cold, choking fog and that Jon was quietly terrified to relinquish lest that fog seep back into the gaps between Martin’s fingers without anything there to chase it away. Standing in the entryway and staring at dust-covered couches and hazy yellow light filtering in through the windows, Jon suddenly became very aware of the feeling of Martin’s hand in his, of the shattering of the space between them that had been carefully cultivated over the span of so many months.

The thought came to him unbidden, insistent, and anxious: _how much of that space was he allowed to occupy? How much of Martin would he be allowed to touch?_

The answer had come during their fourth night in the safehouse, when Jon had awoken sometime in the early morning hours to find himself pressed into Martin’s side, one arm slung over Martin’s chest and his head tucked in the space between Martin’s shoulder and jaw.

Jon felt a flush begin to crawl up the back of his neck, and he made to move away.

“Jon,” Martin said, voice soft and husky from sleep. “You- you don’t have to go.”

And so Jon stayed. His hand tentatively curled in the loose fabric of Martin’s shirt, his nose brushing against the line of Martin’s jaw. He felt more than he heard Martin’s sharp intake of breath, the way that Martin shifted ever so slightly so that Jon fit more comfortably against his side. Hesitantly, like a child dipping their toes into the ocean to see how sharp the cold would be, Jon let his hand wander further up, tracing the lines of Martin’s chest, shoulder blade, and collarbone. His palm came to rest feather-light against Martin’s cheek, his fingers brushing against the whisps of ginger hair (now streaked with white) that curled just past the shell of Martin’s ear. Martin stiffened under his touch, but before Jon could pull his hand away, Martin said, in a voice cracked through with something aching and tender, “ _Jon._ ”

Then, Martin’s hand was on Jon’s jaw, tilting his head up with the gentleness one would use when handling a priceless, fragile thing, and Martin’s eyes were so close that Jon nearly drowned in the blue of them, a blue that once might have reminded Jon of swirling fog and stolen moments but that now seemed like wide-open sky and the ocean just before dawn. Jon could barely breathe; he’d spent so long not giving those eyes any consideration at all and had then spent what seemed like an eternity wanting nothing more than for those eyes to look at him with something other than remorse and regret. Now, they were inches away and Jon found himself lost in them, consumed by an endless expanse of blue yet anchored to the man who was now brushing his thumb against the line of Jon’s cheek, leaving a burning heat in its wake that elicited a shiver from Jon.

He almost didn’t hear it when Martin said, softly, like a prayer, “Can… can I kiss you?”

Jon couldn’t find the words within him to answer. So, he slid his hand back into the mess of curls at the nape of Martin’s neck, leaned forward, and kissed him.

Jon could touch Martin’s lips, he found, and so he did. He could touch Martin’s jaw and cheek and neck, and so he did, peppering feather-light kisses along the line of Martin’s jaw and down his collarbone, smiling into the hollow of Martin’s neck when Martin let out a keening laugh and said, “Hey, th- that tickles!” He could touch Martin’s fingers and palm and knuckles, and so he found Martin’s hand with his and held it tightly, finding that his fingers fit in the gaps between Martin’s with ease. He could run his fingers through Martin’s hair and along the inside of Martin’s arms and down the gentle swell of Martin’s stomach, trying to learn in a moment what he’d been wanting to know for what felt like decades.

His hand met the hem of Martin’s shirt, and he hesitated. His eyes found Martin’s again, briefly lost in swirling blue before he came back to himself enough to say, “Is this… can I…?”

Martin nodded, so small it was almost imperceptible. Then, he worried his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment before saying, haltingly, “I… just- just the shirt, though?” He paused, clearly considering his next words, before continuing, “I- I don’t know if, um. I don’t want to imply that… that you, er, were…”

“ _Martin,_ ” Jon said, kind but firm. “Please, just—whatever you want to say, you can say it. I promise, I… I want to listen.” A pause, then: “I want to _know_ you. The- the old-fashioned way, that is.”

Martin drew in a shaky breath; Jon wasn’t sure if it was born of nerves or of something else. “Right.” There was another pause, and Jon waited, letting his hand rest lightly against Martin’s hip and taking the time to begin the process of memorizing every single inch of Martin’s face. There was a trio of moles under his left eye, almost hidden by the spattering of freckles across his nose and cheekbones, and the smile lines at the corners of his eyes were not quite so deeply etched as the horizontal lines of worry across his brow. Jon was considering closing the distance and pressing a kiss to those lines in an effort to smooth them when Martin said quietly, “I don’t… I don’t really like anything that involves…”

He made a vague gesture with his hand, and Jon was starting to think that he understood. Still, he said, meaningfully, “ _Martin._ ”

“Sex, Jon,” Martin said, all in a rush, like the words had been expelled from his lungs by force. “I don’t like sex.” A pink flush was spreading over his cheeks, a color that Jon found rather lovely on Martin. “I’ve never really been comfortable being touched, er. Below the waist? So, the- the shirt is fine— _more_ than fine, actually, but just… not… you know.”

“Your genitals,” Jon said helpfully.

Martin made a sputtering, choking noise, looking at Jon like he’d just told a lewd joke. “ _Jon!_ ”

Jon let out a small, breathy laugh. “It’s what they’re called, Martin.”

“Yes, but you don’t need to—”

Martin cut off with an aborted noise, something akin to frustration but with infinitely more fondness. “ _Eugh,_ I just hate that word. It sounds so- so _clinical._ ”

“I mean, I can use _other_ words if you’d like—”

“No, no,” Martin said quickly, pink quickly overtaking the rest of his face. Jon found that he quite liked making Martin blush, and he tucked that information away for later. “That’s _quite_ all right. Let’s just- just go back to the kissing. The kissing was nice.”

Jon hummed in agreement, leaning forward and pressing a soft, closed-mouth kiss against Martin’s lips. Then, almost like an afterthought, he pulled back slightly and said, “While we’re on the subject, I… I also would prefer to keep all touching… _above the waist._ ”

Martin’s breath was soft against Jon’s lips when he said, “Oh.” Then, after a small exhalation that might have been a laugh or might have been a sigh of relief: “G- good. _Great._ That makes it easy then, I suppose.”

Jon made a noise of agreement. Then, with a small smirk: “We’ll keep genitals out of the equation entirely, then.”

“ _Jon!”_

“Sorry, sorry.”

Jon pressed another soft kiss to Martin’s mouth, feeling Martin’s lips fold into a smile against his after a moment, and all was forgiven. 

It’s been nearly a week since then. Now, Martin’s touch is almost second nature as he presses his hand against Jon’s hip and guides him into an imitation of a waltz, the music having shifted without Jon noticing into a lilting three pattern. Jon’s long-since memorized the details of Martin’s face and has moved on to his hands; he catalogs the way that Martin’s right hand feels folded around his in this way, fingers slightly rough from a childhood spent doing household chores and, for the span of a few years, working as a house painter between semesters. Martin’s left hand fits neatly against the bone of Jon’s hip, his fingers creating gentle points of pressure against Jon’s skin that Jon recognizes from the dozens of times Martin’s placed his hand against Jon’s back, only the tips of his fingers touching Jon’s spine as he looks over his shoulder at the pot he’s stirring on the hob or the book he’s reading at the kitchen table, hunched over it in a way that can’t be good for his spine. Jon tucks both sensations neatly away in his mind in the folder labeled _Martin’s hands_ and focuses on the music, on the way that Martin seems to know all the right steps, the way he carries Jon through them effortlessly and doesn’t flinch when Jon inevitably misses a step and lands, instead, on Martin’s left foot.

The up-tempo swing track that comes on after the waltz is a different story. Jon pulls back slightly, suddenly unsure. He’d tried swing dancing exactly once with Georgie—had gone through the trouble of watching videos to learn the steps and practicing awkwardly by himself before hesitantly bringing the idea up to Georgie. It had gone predictably terribly, with the added downside of knocking a vase of flowers off Georgie’s kitchen table where it had shattered against the tile floor into a million tiny shards that took ages to clean up. Needless to say, they’d stuck to slower songs after that.

Jon looks warily at the record player, then back at Martin. He’s about to apologize, to reluctantly put an end to the feeling of Martin’s hand on his waist and Martin’s body flush against his, when his mind strays idly back to the music, to the motions that should accompany it, and he realizes with a start that he _Knows._ It’s as clear in his mind as the name of the bass player for the track (Ray Brown) and the exact tempo of the music (100 beats per minute to the half note, a song more easily felt in two than in four).

It might be the one and only time the Beholding has ever given him knowledge that’s been useful. He decides not to look too closely at it and simply pulls Martin in close once again.

Soon, they’re spinning around the living room, having several near-misses with the couch and various tables but never quite losing their balance. Martin’s steps are a bit clumsy—“I took a class back when I worked in the Library,” Martin had said with a sheepish smile, “but between not knowing anybody there and it being a good thirty minutes from my flat, I ended up dropping it”—so they keep it simple, just the basic steps with an added turn. Occasionally, they’ll break out of closed position and Martin will spin Jon, sending Jon’s skirt haloing around him in a whirlwind of yellows and blacks and whites. Once, Jon’s heel hits the edge of the couch and it’s only the quick press of Martin’s hand against the small of his back that keeps him upright. The smile Martin gives him at that is breathtaking, and the rest of the room blurs around him until all he can see is Martin’s face as they dance, smile lines prominent around his eyes and cheeks flushed red with exertion.

Jon’s told Martin that he loves him, in words but also in a million different ways as they’ve lived their lives in the safehouse, through feather-light brushes of fingers and sleepy morning kisses and quiet moments shared over tea and toast. Now, as he holds Martin’s hand tightly and steps in time with him around and around and around, he can’t help but feel that same love in the brassy singing of trumpets and in the way that Martin anchors him as they spin, his hand in Jon’s like a lifeline.

The song ends—as all things do—and as the last few lingering piano notes die down into clicking static, Jon finds himself quite literally swept off his feet. He makes a noise of surprise as Martin spins him once more and uses the momentum to guide Jon into a low dip, a steadying hand on Jon’s lower back keeping him from falling to the floor. Martin’s eyes, endless oceans of blue, are inches from Jon’s, and his breath ghosts across Jon’s lips as he says, softly, “And _you_ said you were a terrible dancer.”

Jon blinks for a moment before saying stiffly, “Yes, well, I can’t _always_ have the eldritch equivalent of YouTube in my mind showing me the correct steps.”

Martin hums. “Perhaps we should learn the old-fashioned way, then?”

Jon’s heart, already thrumming from exertion, stutters a bit in his chest. A bit more breathlessly than he’d like, he says, “Yes, I- I think that would do just fine.”

Martin hums again. Then, he closes the distance, capturing Jon’s lips in a kiss as sweet as honey and just as dizzying as Jon had felt when they’d been dancing. Jon lets his arms wind around Martin’s neck, fingers tangling in the coppery curls there and keeping him steady as Martin uses the gravity of the dip to deepen the kiss in a way that Jon very, very much likes.

When Martin finally pulls back, Jon feels like all the breath has been drawn out of his lungs, leaving him light-headed and dizzy. Still, he finds enough air within him to say, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, “I love you.”

Martin smiles like starlight and presses another closed-mouth kiss to Jon’s lips. “I love you too,” he murmurs against Jon’s mouth. Then, just as suddenly as he’d been dipped, Jon finds himself swept up entirely off the ground, one of Martin’s arms slotting underneath his knees and the other behind his shoulder blades.

“ _Martin!_ ” Jon exclaims, face flushed red-hot with embarrassment and affection in equal measure, as Martin begins to carry him bridal-style into the bedroom, pausing only briefly on the way to lift the needle off the record. “Martin, _what are you—_ ”

He cuts off with a surprised noise that, if asked, he will maintain was certainly _not_ a giggle as Martin deposits him onto the bed, his skirt bunching up under his knees. The sound he makes when Martin clambers onto the bed after him, straddles his waist, and kisses him soundly is embarrassingly close to a moan.

“ _Martin,”_ Jon says breathlessly when Martin finally pulls back, the need to breathe overtaking them both. He searches for the right words, and finding none, he simply says, “ _What?_ ”

Martin brushes his fingers across the curve of Jon’s cheek reverently. “While dancing has been lovely,” Martin says, “my legs are quite tired, and I’d _very_ much like to keep kissing you if that’s all right.”

Jon’s cheeks are fully overtaken by flame; the warmth spreads to his chest, where it curls around his heart and heats Jon from the inside out with a love so potent he can barely breathe around it. “Yes,” Jon says, his voice cracking around the word. “That- that would be quite all right indeed.”

And when Martin dips down to meet Jon’s lips once again, it’s piano chords and spinning skirts and eyes the color of the sky, calling him home.

**Author's Note:**

> [the swing dancing video I referenced](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26-1t15R_MU)
> 
> [Our Love Is Here To Stay](https://open.spotify.com/album/03ZEtEAz7no600yheTPZcl?si=5Qwe-FPORBWwXCq2KApLng)
> 
> This is the last fic for aspec archives week! Thanks to everyone who read, left kudos, and commented throughout the week—I really appreciate it! 
> 
> comments and kudos make my day! if you liked what you read, let me know 💛
> 
> find me on tumblr [@bluejayblueskies](https://bluejayblueskies.tumblr.com/)


End file.
